The Dancer from Atlantis (10 page)

‘In the end, having gained some wealth, we could buy passage from a Rhodian trader. At his home port we found distant kinfolk
of mine, who helped us start anew. At last we were well off.

‘But I am no longer the girl you loved, Duncan.’

A silence lingered. The water sang, the owl crossed beneath the moon on phantom wings. Reid cradled his warm pipe and Erissa’s
clasping hand.

‘Nor am I the god you remember,’ he said at length. ‘I never was.’

‘Maybe a god used you and has since gone away. You’re not less dear for that.’

He put the pipe down, twisted about to confront her – how luminous those eyes! – and said gravely, ‘You must try to understand.
We’ve all come back into the past. You too. At this moment, I feel sure, the girl who was you is alive on an Atlantis that
has not foundered.’

‘That
will
not.’ Her voice rang. ‘This is why we were sent here, Duncan: that we, forewarned, may save our people.’

He couldn’t reply.

The tone softened: ‘But how I have longed for you, how I have dreamed. Am I grown too old, my darling?’

It was as if someone else answered. ‘No. You never will.’

He himself thought: ‘Yes, O Christ, an act of kindness if nothing else. No, now come off that. You’ve had a couple of romps
Pam hasn’t needed to be told about, and Christ, Pam won’t be born for three or four thousand years, and Erissa is
here and beautiful…. But it was not himself thinking after all; it was the stranger, the outcast from an unreal tomorrow.
Himself was the one who had spoken aloud.

Weeping and laughing, Erissa took him to her.

Aegeus, King of the Athenians, had been a strong man. Age whitened his hair and beard, shrank the muscles around the big bones,
dimmed his eyes, knotted his fingers with arthritis. But still he sat his throne in dignity; and when he handled the twin
hemispheres of the
mentatór,
he showed no fear.

The slave who had learned Keftiu from it groveled on the rush-strewn clay floor. He could not speak his new language clearly,
his mouth being torn and puffed from the blow of a spearbutt that overcame his first struggling, screaming terror. The warriors
– Aegeus’ guards and chance visitors, about fifty altogether – stood firm; but many a tongue was moistening lips, many an
eyeball rolled beneath a sweaty brow. Servants and women cowered back against the walls. The dogs, giant mastiffs and wolfhounds,
sensed fear and growled.

‘This is a mighty gift,’ the king said.

‘We hope it will be of service, my lord,’ Reid answered.

‘It will. But the power in it is more: a guardian, an omen. Let these helmets be kept in the Python shrine. Ten days hence,
let there be a sacrifice of dedication, and three days of feasting and games. As for these four who have brought the gift,
know every man that they are royal guests. Let them be given suitable quarters, raiment, comely women, and whatever else they
may lack. Let all pay them honor.’

Aegeus leaned forward on the lionskin that covered his marble throne. Peering to see the newcomers better, he finished less
solemnly, ‘You must be wearied. Would you not like to be shown your rooms, be washed, take refreshment and rest? This evening
we shall dine with you and hear your stories in fullness.’

His son Theseus, who occupied a lower seat on his right, nodded. ‘So be it,’ he ordered. Otherwise the prince’s countenance
remained unmoving, his gaze wary.

A slave chamberlain took over. As his party was led from the hall, Reid had a chance to look around more closely than hitherto.
Athens, smaller, poorer, further from civilization, did not boast the stone architecture of a Mycenae or Tiryns. The royal
palace on the heights of the Acropolis was wood. But those
were enormous timbers, in this age before the deforestation of Greece. Massive columns upheld beams and rafters down a length
of easily a hundred feet. Windows, their shutters now open, admitted some daylight from a clerestory, as did the smokehole
in the shake roof. But it was gloomy in here; shields and weapons hung behind the benches already threw back the glimmer of
stone lamps. Yet furs, tapestries, gold and silver vessels made a rude magnificence.

Three wings ran from the hall. One was for utility and servitors’ quarters, one for the royal family and its permanent freeborn
attendants, one for guests. The rooms, fronting on a corridor, were cubicles, their doorways closed merely by drapes. However,
those drapes were thick and lavishly patterned; the plaster walls were ornamented with more tapestries; the bedsteads were
heaped with sheepskins and furs above the straw; next to rhytons stood generous containers of wine as well as water; and in
each compartment a girl made timid obeisance.

Oleg clapped his hands. ‘Oh, ho!’ he chortled. ‘I like this place!’

‘If we never get back,’ Uldin agreed, ‘we could do far worse than become Aegeus’ men.’

The chamberlain indicated a room for Erissa. ‘Uh, she and I are together,’ Reid said. ‘One
servant
will be ample.’

The other man leered. ‘You get one apiece, master. So ’twas commanded. They can share the extra room. We’ve not much company,
what with harvest season ashore and fall weather afloat.’ He was a bald-headed Illyrian with the perkiness of any old retainer.
– No, Reid thought suddenly. He’s a slave. He behaves like a lifer who’s at last become a trusty in his prison.

The girls said they would fetch the promised garments. Was food desired? Did our lord and lady wish to be taken to the bathhouse,
scrubbed, massaged, and rubbed with olive oil by their humble attendants?

‘Later,’ Erissa said. ‘In time to have us ready for the king’s feast – and the queen’s.’ she added, for Achaean women did
not dine formally with men. ‘First we would rest.’

When she and Reid were alone, she laid arms around him, cheek against his shoulder, and whispered forlornly, ‘What can we
do?’

‘I don’t know,’ he replied into the sunny odor of her hair. ‘So far we’ve had scant choice, haven’t we? We may end our days
here. As our friends said, there are worse fates.’

Her clasp tightened till the nails dug into his back. ‘You can’t mean that. These are the folk who burned – who will burn
Knossos and end the peace of the Minos – so they can be free to go pirating!’

He didn’t answer directly, for he was thinking: That’s how she looks at it. Me, I don’t know. They’re rough, the Achaeans,
but aren’t they open and upright in their fashion? And what about those human victims for the Minotaur?

Aloud he said. ‘Well, if nothing else, I can arrange your passage to Keftiu territory.’

‘Without you?’ She drew apart from him. Strangeness rose in her voice. Her look caught his and would not let go. ‘It will
not be, Duncan. You will fare to Atlantis, and love me, and in Knossos you will beget our son. Afterward—’

‘Hush!’ Alarmed, he laid a hand across her mouth. Diores, at least, was probably quite capable of planting spies on the king’s
mysterious visitors, the more so when one of them was a Cretan of rank. And the door drape wasn’t soundproof. Too late, Reid
regretted not using the
mentatór
to give his party a language unknown here. Hunnish or Old Russian would have done quite well.

But in the desert they’d been too distracted to foresee a need; and maybe Diores would have forbidden magic on his ship; yes,
doubtless he would have, if only to prevent those whom he was suspicious of from gaining that advantage.

‘These are, uh, matters too sacred to speak of here,’ Reid said. ‘Let’s seek a private place later.’

Erissa nodded. ‘Yes. I understand. Soon.’ Her lips writhed. She blinked hard. ‘Too soon. However long our fate will be in
taking us, it will be too soon.’ Drawing him toward the bed: ‘You are not over-wearied, are you? This while that we have together?’

The slave who brought them breakfast in the morning, leftovers from last night’s roast ox, announced, ‘Prince Theseus asks
the pleasure of my lord’s company. My lady is invited to spend the day with the queen and her girls.’ She had an accent; what
homeland did she yearn for?

Erissa wrinkled her nose at Reid. She was in for a dull time, even if the girls were from noble families, learning housewifery
as attendants on Aegeus’ consort. (She was his fourth in succession but would doubtless outlive him, he being too old to
bring her to her grave of a dozen children beginning when she was fifteen.) Reid signed her to accept. Why give needless offense
to touchy hosts?

The tunic, cloak, sandals, and Phrygian cap he donned were presents from Theseus’ wardrobe. Tall though the Achaeans were,
few reached the six feet common in Reid’s well-nourished milieu. The prince actually topped the American by a couple of inches.
The latter had been surprised at the degree of surprise this caused him, till he tracked down the reason: Mary Renault’s fine
novels, which described Theseus as a short man. Well, she’d made – would make – a logical interpretation of the legend; but
how much of the legend would reflect truth? For that matter, had this Aegeus and Theseus any identity with the father and
son of the tradition?

They must, Reid thought hopelessly. Their names are associated with the fall of Knossos and the conquest of Crete. And Knossos
will
fall. Crete
will
be overrun, in our very near future, when Atlantis goes down.

The bronze sword he hung at his waist was from Aegeus, leaf-shaped, well-balanced, lovely and deadly. He could not fault the
royal pair for stinginess.

He found Theseus waiting in the hall. Except for slaves tidying up, it felt cavernously empty and still after last evening’s
carousal. (Torch-flare; fire roaring on a central hearthstone less loudly than the chants, footstampings, lyres and syrinxes
and drums, shouts and brags that filled the smoky air; dogs snapping after bones flung them off trestle tables; servants scurrying
to keep the winecups filled; and through it all, Theseus seated impassive, quietly questioning the strangers.) ‘Rejoice, my
lord,’ Reid greeted.

‘Rejoice.’ The prince lifted a muscle-corded arm. ‘I thought you might like to be shown our countryside.’

‘You are most kind, my lord. Ah … my friends—?’

‘My captain Diores is taking the warriors Uldin and Oleg to his estate. He’s promised them horses, and they in turn have promised
to show the use of that saddle with footrests which Uldin brought’

And he’ll pump them, Reid reflected, and he’ll try to split them off from Erissa and me…. Stirrups weren’t invented till millennia
after this, were they? I read that somewhere. They were what made heavy cavalry possible. Suppose they catch on, here and
now – what then?

Can time be changed? Does Erissa’s Thalassocracy have to die? Must I really leave her, in an eerie kind of incest, for her
younger self?

If not … will the future grow into a different shape from what I knew? Will my Pamela ever be born? Will I?

He tried to summon his wife’s image and found that harder to do than it should have been, these few days after he was lost
from her.

Theseus said, ‘Come,’ and led the way outside. He was broad in proportion to his height, but he walked lightly. Fair-skinned,
tawny of hair and beard, his blunt-nosed, full-lipped features were handsome. The eyes were remarkable, set well apart and
of an amber hue, leonine eyes. For the outing he had exchanged his gaudily embroidered festive garments for plain gray wool.
He kept his golden headband, though, the golden brooch at his throat and bracelet on his thick wrist.

While the wind was brisk outdoors, it was not yet an autumn gale, and the clouds it sent scudding were white. Their shadows
swept over a huge landscape, mountains to north and northwest, the Saronic Gulf to the south and west. Across those few miles,
against blue-green whitecaps, Reid made out a cluster he could recognize as boathouses and beached ships at the Piraeus. A
dirt road from there to here cut a brown streak through stubblefields and dusty-green olive orchards. The whole Attic plain
was similarly dappled with agriculture. At a distance he noticed two large houses and their outbuildings that must belong
to wealthy men, and numerous smallholder cottages. Groves of oak or poplar usually surrounded them. The mountains were densely
forested. This was not his Greece.

He noticed how full of birds the sky was. Most he couldn’t name except in general terms, different kinds of thrush, dove,
duck, heron, hawk, swan, crow. Thus far men hadn’t ruined nature. Sparrows hopped among the courtyard cobblestones. Besides
dogs, the animals were absent that would have wandered around a farm, swine, donkeys, sheep, goats, cows, chickens, geese.
But workers bustled among the buildings which defined the enclosure. A household this big required plenty of labor, cleaning,
cooking, milling, baking, brewing, spinning, weaving, endlessly. Most of the staff were women, and most had young children
near their bare feet or clinging to their worn shifts: the next generation of slaves. However, several industries were carried
on by men. Through open shed
doors, Reid glimpsed in action a smithy, a ropewalk, a tannery, a potter’s wheel, a carpenter shop.

‘Are these all slaves, my lord?’ he asked.

‘Not all,’ Theseus said. ‘Particularly, it’s not wise to keep many unfree males about. We hire them, mostly Athenians, a few
skilled foreigners.’ He grinned, his grin that never seemed to reach deeper than his teeth. ‘They’re encouraged to breed brats
on our bondwomen. Thus everyone’s happy.’

Except maybe the bondwomen, Reid thought, the more so when their boys are sold away.

Theseus scowled. ‘We have to keep a Cretan clerk. No need; we’ve men who can write, aye, men whose forebears taught the Cretans
to write! But the Minos requires it of us.’

To keep track of income and outgo, Reid deduced, partly for purposes of assessing tribute, partly for indications of what
the Athenians may be up to. Say, what’s this about the Achaeans being literate before the Minoans were? That doesn’t make
sense.

Theseus halted his complaint before he should grow indiscreet. ‘I thought we’d drive out to my own farmstead,’ he suggested.
You can see a good bit on the way, and for myself I want to make sure the threshing and storing are well in hand.’